


Sweetest Song

by goldfishoflove



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Music, Sappy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 06:55:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15702126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldfishoflove/pseuds/goldfishoflove
Summary: It's five minutes before showtime at the Legato Conservatory. Barry and Lup worry and reflect.





	Sweetest Song

**Author's Note:**

> You and me - all that lights upon us, though,  
> brings us together like a fiddle bow  
> drawing one voice from two strings it glides along.  
> Across what instrument have we been spanned?  
> And what violinist holds us in his hand?  
> O sweetest song.
> 
> from _Love-Song_ , by Rainer Maria Rilke; translation by J. B. Leishman

Lup stalked back and forth across the practice room. Her brow was knitted in thought, and the fingers of her left hand twitched. Her violin would be waiting for her on stage, but Barry could see her running through her part in her mind so clearly that he knew which bar she was on.

In fifty years, he'd never seen her like this. Lup's confidence fit her better than her IPRE robes, and she wore it with more pride. He had guessed when they first met that it was defensive, a wedge she drove between herself and anyone who might try to take something from her. She did use it that way sometimes, but more often, he had learned, it was a key. With her head up and no regard for anybody else’s opinion, she could go anywhere and talk to anyone. For some reason, not long after their mission began, she had chosen to apply that power to Barry.

In the early years, when everything was uncertain, he came to rely on Lup’s interruptions of his late nights in the lab. He would work until exhaustion and frustration blurred his equations, and his belly was tight with fear that they wouldn’t survive long enough to understand what was happening to them. Then she would swoop in, alert and curious, peppering him with questions and jokes until his tension dissolved in her obliviousness to it. Over time, her jokes got gentler, her questions got sharper, and the occasional interruption became a habit.

Barry was elated to find in the smart-mouthed evoker a curiosity and intelligence that would have been at home in his research department, what felt like a lifetime ago. When he started to notice how much he was thinking about her, he tried to chalk it up to the relief of having a colleague on this lonely voyage. After all, the work was all they talked about. When Lup wanted fun, she went to Taako. She sparred with Magnus, and unwound with Lucretia. They had their roles in her life, and he had his. It wasn’t until cycle twelve that he was forced to admit to himself that she meant more to him than that.

Cycle twelve was brutal; Merle and Lucretia died early, and the rest of them struggled to survive on a planet whose atmosphere ate away at their lungs after more than a few minutes of exposure. With their chronicler gone, Barry felt compelled to take more detailed notes than usual, and even as he meticulously documented their suffering he cursed himself for the parts he couldn’t remember, the chapters of their story that would be lost forever. Lup came to the lab one night and found him slumped over the table, head in his hands, shaking with helplessness and grief. He was mortified, but her face as she sat down beside him was serious, and her words were soft. They didn’t get any work done that night, but when he went to bed at dawn, there was a new vibration in his heart that he couldn’t ignore.

Once the seed had been planted, it was hard not to notice everything there was to love about her. The way she was reckless with her magic in the field, but careful and precise in the kitchen. The way she slipped into Elvish when she was squabbling with Taako, sprinkling it liberally with borrowed Common swears. The way she could always come up with a joke when things were dire enough to need one. The way the light hit her hair, one morning, when they’d dragged the map table up to the deck and she was leaning over it plotting the results of yesterday’s survey. Her eyes were narrowed in concentration, and the way the sunshine framed her when Barry looked up to ask a question squeezed all the air out of his lungs. Barry had stared as long as he dared, then forced himself to look away before she noticed.

Lup arrived at the far wall again and turned on her heel. She had reached the end of her silent runthrough, and now had her arms folded across her chest, gazing into the distance as she continued to pace. In her peripheral vision, she watched Barry, standing by the piano, watching her. Usually his presence calmed her down, but right now it just made her already skittish heart beat a little faster. Part of her was ready for this year to be over, to let go of the tension that had been building for months and return to the routine of their lives. Part of her couldn’t bear for it to end.

They hadn’t set out to spend this year together. Each of them had just a scrap of musical background, dimly remembered: Barry took some piano lessons as a kid, and someone once pushed a fiddle into Lup’s hands and taught her enough to dance to near a campfire. When they began their training at the Legato Conservatory, they worked separately, building respectable skills on their respective rocky foundations. As so often happened, though, they fell into each other’s orbits, meeting between lessons to practice or just blow off steam and jam.

It reminded Lup of how she used to bug him in the lab, years ago, after most of the crew was asleep and the ship got too quiet for comfort. She took out her antsiness on him, prodding him to explain what he was working on, and then explain his explanations. She kept waiting for him to get tired of her questions and wave her off so he could focus, but somehow he always smiled when she arrived, even in the early days when he always seemed to be exhausted or afraid. In time, she grew to trust his patience. In time, she grew to like his smile.

He wasn’t the kind of guy she normally went after. Not particularly tough or adventurous, despite being on the adventure of a lifetime; quick-witted enough to keep up with her banter, but not snarky enough to return fire. He didn’t appreciate the subtlety of her cooking, although he loved it anyway and thanked her, out loud, every time. There was a gentleness in him that she wasn’t sure what to do with. She kept expecting him to snap, when she pushed too hard or teased him too much. She knew her jokes sometimes touched a nerve--usually after they’d stayed up too late, and his anxiety drew close to the surface. Even then, though, he never pushed back. He simply withdrew for the night, and the next time she arrived in the lab, he smiled.

Lup was intrigued by the strength that underlay that gentleness. His self-control wasn’t like hers, an accessory she wore occasionally for only as long as she had to. It was the fabric of his life, the rope that pulled him from one decision to the next. It would have made him an excellent liar if he hadn’t been utterly guileless. Barry preferred things to be straightforward, honest, and well-understood, which made it something of a mystery how much he cared for Lup.

She saw it in those smiles, in the way he said thanks, in the way he always looked for her first after the cycle reset. In the way he looked at her sometimes, on a nice sunny day, when he thought she wouldn’t notice. It made her feel warm, being seen that way. He wasn’t pining, or biding his time. They still worked together almost every day, and he challenged her and laughed with her and acceded to her, the same way he always had. He simply loved her as well, alongside all of those things. Straightforward and honest. One day in Jaden Province, cycle seventeen, she burst out laughing watching him play with one of the littlest robots, and a warmth swelled in her heart and didn’t go away.

The balance of their partnership felt too precarious to tip, but Lup couldn't help finding reasons to be near him. It was normal at this point for the two of them to disappear on exploration missions during the year, and if she kept suggesting locations where they might like to do some extra sightseeing--or timing them to coincide with a meteor shower they could watch side by side--well, what was the harm? During cycle thirty, in Tesseralia, she and Taako brought Barry out drinking with them sometimes, and on one particularly hot-blooded evening they each lent her a shoulder to stagger home between. She squeezed them both, slurring praises, and savored the color that rose in Barry’s cheeks while Taako rolled his eyes and smirked.

Seventeen years later, they were waiting in silence in a practice room at the Legato Conservatory. Lup walked another lap, trying to distract herself with the click of her heels on wood. It wasn’t until the last few months that this had become a regular meeting place for them. One of their jam sessions had produced a melody they liked, and their professor encouraged them to develop it. Casual meetings became regular rehearsals, and suddenly they were daily collaborators again.

Lup expected working together on the duet to be much like working together on the ship: enjoyable, but basically professional. She hadn’t accounted for the way Barry’s face lit up when he found the perfect harmony for a phrase, focus giving way suddenly to delight. She certainly wasn’t prepared for the feeling of gliding through a line the first time that it just _clicked_ , moving like one person in two bodies for a breathtaking minute until she forgot to cue a tempo change and they slipped apart again. Even then, they found each other without stopping, and she swayed as he reached for a deep bass note, as if lending him slack in the cord that held them together.

They had studied many things together before--broken them down, compared them, or described them--but this was the first time they'd made something new. They poured their hearts into it. Every phrase told part of their story, and each rehearsal was a fragment of the conversation they still refused to put into words. If Lup had any remaining doubts about Barry’s feelings, they were dispelled after their first complete runthrough of the final arrangement. The last chord faded until it was drowned out by the rustling of the curtain in the evening breeze, and when Lup looked up, Barry met her eyes. Neither of them had looked away.

Barry raised his eyebrows as Lup stopped pacing in front of him. She squinted accusingly.

“How are you so calm right now?”

Barry stared at her. “What makes you think I’m calm?”

Lup frowned. “You look calm.”

Barry chuckled softly and reached for one of her hands. She gave him a curious look but no objection, and he pressed her fingertips to the spot on his neck where she could feel the rapid thudding of his pulse.

Lup heaved a sigh and leaned forward to rest her head on his shoulder. After a moment’s hesitation, Barry folded his arms lightly around her waist. When she spoke, he could feel the heat of her breath on the side of his neck.

“What are you afraid of?” she asked.

“Hmm.” Barry discarded all the answers that came immediately to mind. He was afraid to let go of her, afraid they wouldn’t be this close again. He was afraid to tell her that he loved her. Afraid he’d been misreading the tenderness in her playing, and too afraid to ask. “I guess … I’m worried about performing it in front of everyone. It’s been just our thing for months, you know? Feels weird to let it out in the world.”

“Mm,” Lup acknowledged.

“What about you?”

Lup was silent for long enough that Barry was sure she wasn’t going to answer. When she did, her voice was small.

“What if it makes us forget?”

Too quickly to think about it, Barry tightened his arms around her. “I’m never going to forget this, Lup.”

“Yeah, but what if it--”

“I don’t care. I’m not. I can’t.”

He was staring at the floor, but when Lup lifted her head to look at him, he turned to meet her gaze. Her eyes flicked back and forth as if she were simply reading the feelings off his face. It couldn't have been a revelation, after the year they’d had … but then, they were normally separated by the length of the piano. Now she was in his arms, and her face was so close that the fine hairs on his cheek were standing up. She still had a hand on his neck, and her fingertips brushed lightly over his pulse again. It was hammering. When he saw her glance at his mouth, a shiver went up his spine. He tilted his face towards hers.

They had only a few footsteps of warning before the door swung open. It was enough for their professor to find them two paces apart, looking in different directions, and if she noticed the flush on their faces she graciously attributed it to nerves.

“All right, you two. They’re just about done setting up, we should get down there.”

Lup flashed a confident grin, and Barry was struck by how effortlessly she donned that mask. As they made their way down the road into the valley, their professor explained what to expect and how the program would be arranged.

All Barry could think about was the feeling of Lup’s breath on his skin.

“Here we are. You’ll be sitting up front tonight, the first row is reserved for performers. I’ll meet you on stage when they call you.” The clearing was crowded. They’d attended many submission recitals here by now, but the six highly varied performances had attracted an unusual level of interest, even apart from Merle and Taako’s disciples.

Their professor turned to face them. “Nervous?” she asked.

Barry and Lup looked at each other.

“Nah,” she said. “We got this. Right?”

Barry's heart was still drumming in his chest, but the warmth in Lup's eyes gave him his answer.

"Yeah." He smiled slowly. “We got this.”


End file.
